The Ruined Places
by soavezefiretto
Summary: Six years in a brutal labour camp have left deep scars on the soul and body of Tora Ziyal. As she struggles to come to terms with her past, accept her present, and find her future, she meets Elim Garak. Will he help her or destroy her? Ziyal&Garak. The story of the title was suggested by miloowen, to whom this story is dedicated. It's from the poem "Hyena" by Edwin Morgan.
1. Chapter 1

1.

The carpet in front of the stairs, where the body had come to rest, was spotless, a nice, soft, beige color. There was a lot of beige in the room, it was the standard for campus faculty accommodations and Lamar Torel hadn't added many personal touches to the living room. No photographs, no paintings, no books or magazines.

_"I prefer reading on my padd - I'm not one of those nostalgic types. Frankly, I can't see the romance in heaps and heaps of paper and dust, do you?" _

The only sign that anyone actually lived there was a jacket tossed over the sofa. That's where he'd left it when they came in after dinner.

_"How about a bit of music?"_

It was still playing. Sarah Vaughan singing "Come Rain or Come Shine, a small pause, then the first notes of "Mean to Me." Oh, you've been mean, Lamar Torel, you've been mean to Tora, and look at you now.

_"Actually, I spend most of my time upstairs, in the study. Do you want to come up? It has a great view of the pond. I had to walk over corpses to get this place."_

His expression when he saw her face. His laugh, loud and unashamed, asserting his irresistible charm.

There weren't any books in the study either, of course. Instead, the shelves displayed a series of diplomas, sports awards from Lamar's own university days, and his collection of heart stones.

_"You have to venture pretty deep into the Fire Caves to get these. I was terrified the first time I did it, but afterwards it gets sort of addictive."_

The fearless explorer, the big strong man. Moving close to her, breathing heavy, his hands searching for a place to land.

Killing a person doesn't have to be a very tumultuous act, at least not outwardly. Tora knew how to kill a person with minimal waste of time and energy. The problem came afterwards. There were logistics involved in killing.

A lifeless body is big and unwieldy and never easy to dispose of. Back at the camp she had taken advantage of the desert: a body dumped in the dunes would be eaten clean away in a matter of days, hours even, if a sandstorm formed, and they formed often. People disappeared there every day, and what did it matter? Another prisoner gone meant more food for the rest of them and less work for the guards. A win-win situation for everyone.

But a respected professor of linguistics, somewhat of a local celebrity on account of his athletic feats as a student and his manly good looks, on a university campus not 50 kilometres from Jalanda City, that was a different matter. This was the real world. Civilisation. Close-clipped lawns, painstakingly planted flowerbeds which were color coordinated. There would be inquiries, questions, police investigations. They would want to know what happened. They would use their instruments to sweep the place, and they would find out she had been here, and then they would find the body, of course they would, and they would use their instruments on it and they would find fingerprints, or hair, or some other minuscule but unequivocal proof of her guilt.

Tora considered the situation. It was still early, no one would miss Lamar until he was due at class next morning. There was plenty of time to devise a satisfactory solution to her problem.

So, hiding the body was not an option. Could she make it disappear by some other means? There were acids that could dissolve flesh in a matter of seconds. There were weapons that could disintegrate anything in the blink of an eye. Could she get her hands on any of those in the next six hours? Probably not. Stupid Ziyal had refused to take even the most basic precautions, she had no weapons, no planned escape routes. "I'm here to learn. I'm here to start a new life. I won't need any of that. All that is in the past."

Fool. Doe-eyed, naive fool.

If she couldn't hide the body, and couldn't make it disappear, the only option left was to leave it right there where it had fallen from the study, down the stairs into the living room. All anyone knew (and this, a lot of people knew, it was a small campus and there wasn't very much to talk about), was that professor Lamar Torel and Tora Ziyal had gone out on a date. They had been seen in a little restaurant in the town near campus, sampling their traditional Bajoran cuisine with a touch of the avant garde. After listening to some jazz in a student café nearby (plenty of witnesses there too), they had walked back to the campus through the forest. But no one had seen them after that. No one had seen Ziyal accept his invitation to come up to his apartment, but why would she deny it? Yes, she had been there. The fingerprints? Well, yes, she had touched him and he had touched her. She was an adult woman, after all. But things didn't go very far, because she didn't know him that well yet, and because he was a gentleman.

Except for his fingers, thick suddenly, and hot, his hand travelling up and down her leg, up and down.

_"Do you like the music? Her voice is so sensual, don't you think?" _

There would always be doubt. But could there be more than that? Yes, sir, yes, Mr. Police Investigator, he had a couple of drinks. No, I didn't, I don't like the taste. I never drink. Certainly I wouldn't mind a blood test, anything to help.

The only prints they would find would be on his neck, and only upon very close examination could they find that the pressure exerted was a bit too heavy for the kind of sweet caresses appropriate to a first date, and that the angle of his neck fracture didn't match with the angle of the stairs he'd supposedly fallen down. But wouldn't the investigators want to concentrate on the much more obvious concussion, the broken vertebrae and the high concentration of alcohol in his blood?

Tora hated to rely on such a ridiculous thing as hope, but there it was. Under the circumstances, it would have to do. Her job was to make sure that these circumstances never presented themselves again. From now on, no matter where they went or how safe it seemed, they needed to have their bases covered. Ziyal needed to learn her lesson.

And they would need to move. Soon.


	2. Chapter 2

2.

It had all been timed and staged with professional zeal and accuracy. It wasn't the first time he'd done it, and if she hadn't ended him for good, it wouldn't have been the last. He had adjusted the tone of his voice, the frequency of his smiles, the exact pitch of his laughter. Even Tora had started to feel more and more at ease, lulled into sort of a pleasant state of friendly detachment. Maybe he really was just what he seemed: a mildly boring, not too profound man whose only real asset were his looks and who was starting to wonder what he would do when he couldn't rely on his attractive anymore. Maybe he was what Ziyal needed: someone unthreatening, unexciting with whom she could play at being a couple for a while.

When he kissed her, Ziyal didn't feel much of anything, which she had expected, and she didn't remember anything either, which was good. When he asked her in, for "a cup of coffee", she knew what it meant. And she went. This was something she needed to do. Or so she thought.

Up in his studio, in front of the shelves full of precious heart stones, he kissed her again, pressing her to himself this time, running his hands up and down her back, digging his fingers into her shoulders. Breathing heavily, pushing her toward the bedroom while fingering her dress, trying to undo the buttons. Ziyal closed her eyes, telling herself to try to relax. She could feel he was very eager, it would be over soon. He didn't look like the kind of guy who liked to take his time… And who said she couldn't even enjoy it? People, normal people, people in this world who went out for dinner and chatted about pets and the latest fashions from Betazed were supposed to enjoy sex, weren't they?

And then he had to go and speak. He shouldn't have done that.

"Oooh, I know you are going to love this. I know you want it. You Cardassians, you love it, don't you? You just can't help it."

"What did you say?"

"Oh, are you going to play that game? I love that game. Is that what you're going to do? Is that how you like it?"

He pushed her against the wall and put his hand beneath her skirt. Up and down his hand travelled, up and down. Ziyal still felt nothing.

"I've always wanted a Cardassian. The things they say about you…"

"I'm not a Cardassian."

One hand between her legs, the other on her breast, he stopped and gave her a genuinely surprised look.

"Of course you are. What else could you be? Even a single drop of Cardassian blood makes you a Cardassian. Everyone knows that." He chuckled softly, lowering his mouth toward her neck. "Not that we'd need a blood analysis in your case. Just look at these." His tongue darted out, and he licked.

"Do you like them?"

He grinned then. He had no way of knowing that Ziyal had already left, and Tora had taken her place. Tora had no intention of hurting this man. She just wanted to get herself and Ziyal away from him as fast as possible.

"Goodbye, Torel."

"Call me Torel. I feel like I know you so well already, and I hope you know me too."

Again the surprised look.

"What?"

And then, while Tora had his back to him, walking towards the stairs that led down to the living room, out of the corner of her eye she saw something bloom in his face that had nothing to do with surprise, and nothing with lust either. It was a look she knew very well, the look of a predator, and she knew then that he was not only disgusting, but dangerous. She turned to face him. He grabbed her arm, but, just as Ziyal hadn't, Tora didn't feel anything either.

"Oh, no. You don't understand, my sweet."

"I don't?"

"This is not going to end like this. This was never going to end like this."

She watched calmly as he came closer, placing his hand on her buttocks with an easy sense of possession.

"You're not going to scream, are you? No, of course not, you're a sensible girl. That's why I like you so much. You know that if you say something, anything, to anyone, I'll just say you're crazy. Out of your mind. You made it all up. It'll me my word against yours, and who do you think they'll believe, huh? They'll put you away, sweet Ziyal, lock you up. Don't you think they are just waiting for an opportunity? To study you, yeah, because you are a rare one, a rare one, my sweet."

His accent had gotten thicker, or maybe it was the saliva rushing to his mouth, so thick it was starting to drizzle down his cheek and his throat. She could feel his hands trembling, almost beside himself with the desire to possess her, to humiliate her.

"Don't say that. Don't call me sweet."

She was smiling when she said it so, following some humanoid instinct, he smiled back. He was still smiling when she snapped his neck and lightly danced downstairs to watch his heavy body follow, step after step.


	3. Chapter 3

3.

In her room, Ziyal took off her dress and immediately put it on a hanger in the closet. She had seen how other girls just left their discarded clothes in ever growing piles on chairs, beds and the floor, until they couldn't take it anymore (or until the ward supervisor took them apart for a discreet yet serious talk). Then they sometimes had these "cleaning up parties": they brought food and drinks and invited girls from other rooms and wards, and spent hours trying clothes on, exchanging them, giggling, gossiping, and generally having a good time. Ziyal had been invited to some of these parties. Everyone did them, Bajoran girls, Terran, Orion, Betazoid, Deltan. It seemed the propensity to leave clothing lying around a room was a universal trait for young females across space and species.

Ziyal wished she could do that, just slip out of her dress and leave it there on the floor, then the next day leave another dress on top of it, and so on, and then have a great, extravagant, loud party with a dozen girls dancing around in their underwear. She wanted to teach herself not to care, to live in the moment. To relax. But she couldn't. Whenever she was in a big group of people her muscles started to clench up, her breathing became shallow and she had to repress the urge to jump out of the nearest window. A dress on the floor looked too much like the crumpled skin of some unnamed being that had crawled away, naked and bloody, to die in some corner of her nice, clean, sunny university dorm room. A smiling girl could turn into a hyena in the blink of an eye, with a mouth full of teeth ready to tear her face off. But Tora would never let that happen, no matter how much Ziyal might wish for it…

The doctors had said that therapy would help her with all that, but therapy, as she soon found out, didn't just mean medication to help her sleep and shut down the images and voices, but hours and hours of talking and visualising and integrating. They said she couldn't have one without the other, so she had said thank you, but no thank you, I'll be fine, and when they insisted, she just casually mentioned who her father was and how displeased he would be if he found out that his daughter was being harassed and forced to undergo therapy against her will. They left her alone after that.

She put on her bathrobe and walked to the window. There were lights in many of the other windows in the student's complex. Ziyal wondered why someone would want to do anything besides sleep while it was dark outside. Darkness was not meant to be lived in. People who stayed awake at night did it to keep watch over others who needed the sleep more than they did, to hide things that shouldn't be seen, or to protect oneself and one's possessions against predators, and while there were predators here (Tora had just left behind the broken body of one of them), she assumed it wasn't the thought of them that was keeping all those people awake, and if they had to hide things, all their rooms wouldn't be so cheerfully lit. They were studying, perhaps. Reading. Or maybe they had just come back from a date, just like she and Lamar only one hour ago, and someone had asked someone else up for a cup of coffee, or one last drink, and maybe proposed to listen to some music. Maybe they had touched each other, found each other, in the natural and exciting and magical way that she had read about in books, and now, afterwards, they were just lying together, softly saying meaningless words.

Has any of them ever killed someone? Has any of them ever thought about it? Do they know how easy it is? A question of pressure and balance. Cup the chin with one hand, gently. Place the other hand near the ear and lean in close, closer, as if to whisper a secret… and then, move. It cannot be described or explained, that move, it can just be - executed. It becomes a part of you, like that certain jump and twist when you catch a curve pass in a game of Parrises Squares, or that perfect bend to your knee when your tennis racquet hits the ball in just the right way. Or something as simple as a cartwheel.

Do you remember when father taught you how to do cartwheels?, Tora asked.

Yes, Ziyal remembered. There had been a lawn somewhere, and a nice house, and she had prayed to the Prophets that they could stay there forever, her mother and father and her, but of course it hadn't lasted. It never did. She had seen some children on the common lawn turn cartwheels, but Ziyal was afraid to fall and break her nose. Her father had said he would be very close by to catch her. "You have to do it fast, very fast", he'd said. "That's the secret."

After taking a shower, Ziyal sat down at her desk with the copy of Shakespeare's works she had checked out from the library. Tora thought it would be better to go to the library directly, it was open day and night and it would be good if someone saw her there. But Ziyal didn't want to be looked at. Don't be silly, Tora sneered, do you think people will know what you've done just by looking at you? How could they? You're so sweet and so cute, everybody loves you!

"Shut up!"

Saying it out loud usually helped. Ziyal opened the book. Someone, she couldn't remember who, probably a teacher or maybe a librarian, had said to her that if she wanted to understand the soul, and not just the human soul, but a kind of universal soul, she should read Shakespeare, and that if she wanted to understand love, she should read Shakespeare's sonnets.

"From fairest creatures we desire increase,

That thereby beauty's rose might never die,

But as the ripper should by time decease,

His tender heir might bear his memory-"

_Riper_. It's riper Ziyal, not ripper.

Shut up.


	4. Chapter 4

4.

Dear Nerys:

Here I said I would be writing to you all the time, and now you put me to shame with your nice letter, and I haven't written a single word to you! Thank you so much, I loved reading about your busy life at the station. It sounds like such an interesting and exciting place, always people coming and going, always something unexpected happening…

Of course the campus is exciting too, in its own way. But then anything outside the camp seems new and exciting to me. My world was so small there: all I cared about was a place to sleep, food, and trying to keep out of the way of bad people. It wasn't a good life, but it was what I knew. Now I'm meeting new people every day, and I have to talk to them and listen to them, and then I have my classes, too. I've been studying so much I make myself dizzy, and I must confess sometimes I feel discouraged by the thought that, even if I devoted my whole life to study, I could only learn a minuscule fraction of all there is to know about the Universe. But mostly I'm just delighted by the chance to learn, so I've taken classes in archeology, sociology, biology, astronomy, literature, art, mathematics… just to name a few. I've even taken a dancing class (don't laugh now!), because I have a friend named Tialla who persuaded me to go with her. The teacher says I have "a natural grace", but I think she's just being kind.

Everyone here has been so kind, really. Of course some were cautious at first, that's only natural. And it's true there are some people who just prefer not to talk to me at all. But I wouldn't think of holding it against them. How do I know I wouldn't do the same if our situations were reversed? But many other people have invited me to parties, or have taken the time to talk to me, to explain things I don't understand, to listen to me…

I even went on a date today! A geology professor named Lamar Torel took me for dinner to a very nice restaurant, and then we went to another place where there was a concert of a type of music called "jazz". Do you know it? It made me kind of uneasy, but in a good way… A curious sensation. Anyway, it was a very nice evening, and then we went to his place and - well, let's just say I wish you could be here so I could tell you about it. Writing is not the same, and there's no one here to talk to about that sort of thing.

Which brings me to something I've been meaning to ask you. Like I said, life here on campus has been wonderful, but also exhausting. I have been having headaches and not sleeping very well. Yes, I've been to the doctor, and she says it's just stress, so it's nothing to worry about. She said to go out more a little more (which I did) and study a little less (which I'm trying to), to exercise (dance class!) and to watch my diet (difficult, but I'm trying). But I've been wondering if maybe I need something more, or something else. Or maybe someone I feel more - connected to.

All right, I'm just going to say it: do you think there's any chance I could come and live on Deep Space 9, at least for a while? It would be so wonderful to be able to see you and talk to you. Not all the time, of course. I know you have a job and a personal life of your own, and I wouldn't intrude on that. But I think just to know that you are close by, and maybe have dinner or lunch once in a while would make me feel so much better. Most of the time I would be studying anyway, just like I'm doing here, and reading, which is kind of the same thing because I've decided to focus on literature (now I just have to decide which planet, or at least which sector).

And maybe there wouldn't be any people looking at me, or choosing to ignore me on Deep Space 9. After all, it's a space station, people there must be used to seeing much stranger things than me. Also, the fact that it is a space station, that everything is contained in a relatively small space (but still much bigger than what I was used to) makes me feel comfortable. Maybe I just need a period of adaptation.

I know it is a lot to ask, and I know you will tell me truthfully if it's not possible. If I can't live on Deep Space 9, I just will keep looking. If there's one thing I've learned in these past months it's that the Universe is a big, big, place, and there's a small place for each and every one of us. We just have to find it.

All my best wishes to you, dear Nerys.

Your

Ziyal


	5. Chapter 5

5.

"Welcome to Deep Space 9!"

There she was, all professional in her uniform and close cropped hair. Her smile was friendly, but also guarded. The smile of a soldier who knows that everyone she meets may be dead in a year, a month, a week - an hour. Kira Nerys didn't believe this was a time of peace, or maybe she didn't believe in peace, period. She was right, of course.

She must have another smile, Ziyal was sure of it, open and free, and to see it would be a thing of beauty. She wondered who had seen that smile, who would see it yet. The man at her side, perhaps? He was smiling too, the tired smile of someone who hasn't had enough sleep for quite some time. His blue uniform indicated he was a scientist or doctor.

"Nerys! I'm so happy to see you…"

They embraced. She is so slight, Ziyal thought. It would be so easy to break her… If I ever needed to.

"Thank you for making this possible."

"Oh, it was nothing. I just hope you can feel at home here."

"I'm sure I will."

"Ziyal, this is doctor Julian Bashir. Julian, Tora Ziyal."

"Hello, Tora. It's a pleasure to meet you. Welcome to Deep Space 9."

"Oh. Hello, Doctor Bashir. I didn't know I needed a doctor…"

"Oh, no! No, of course you don't need a doctor. I'm just here in case there was something heavy that needed to be carried."

Ziyal laughed, while Kira rolled her eyes and smirked, pretending to be annoyed.

"Oh wow, that's so — attentive. Actually, I do have a couple of very heavy trunks. I had arranged for them to be transported directly to my quarters, but if you really want to carry something…"

Now it was his turn to laugh. "Ok, you called my bluff. All right. The truth is, Nerys has already told me so much about you, I was anxious to meet you and decided I needed to be part of the welcoming committee. I hope you don't mind."

She is afraid of you. Kira. She didn't want to be here alone, with you. Because she didn't know what to expect? Or because she knew too well? Was your letter not perfect enough, was there something in it, a certain way you arranged you words, the choice of one word over another, that made her suspect?

"Not at all. I think that's very - sweet."

There was a moment of silence in which everyone just sort of smiled at each other. We're all friends here.

"Maybe we should show Tora to her quarters?", Bashir suggested.

"Yes, yes of course. Right this way…"

Kira's communicator beeped. "Odo to Kira."

"Kira here."

"There's a - situation at Quark's. I would appreciate your assistance."

Ziyal spoke before Kira could say anything.

"Please, don't worry about me. If you just tell me which way to go, I'm sure I'll have no problem finding my quarters."

Kira shook her head.

"There is no way I will let you wander around on the station alone on your first day. Odo will just have to deal with whatever it is on his own."

"It has probably something to do with naked women", Bashir said. "He's afraid of them. Major, why don't you go and help Odo out before acute shame makes him liquefy, and I'll show Tora to her quarters."

"I don't know…"

Again Odo's voice interrupted them from Kira's communicator.

"Major?"

"Stand by, Constable."

"Kira, really, it's no trouble at all. It is somewhat shameful to admit, but the truth is I'm not busy at all at the moment. Which must mean I am either extremely diligent or extremely lazy, I'm not sure which. It will be not only no trouble, but a genuine pleasure."

I am going to like this Doctor Bashir, Ziyal thought. He hides something, thought Tora. Of course he does. Everyone hides something.

Kira nodded once and tapped her communicator: "Kira to Odo - I'm on my way."

"Thank you, Major".

"I'm very, sorry, Ziyal…"

"There is nothing to be sorry for, Nerys. I haven't forgotten my promise: I will not be a nuisance."

"Nonsense, you're not being a nuisance. We'll meet for dinner, I promise my schedule will be clear, and we'll talk, all right? Nineteen hundred hours at Quark's. On the promenade, you can't miss it."

"Quark's? Where the naked women are? I wouldn't miss it for the world."

Trying, not very hard, to repress a chuckle, Kira turned to Bashir.

"Thank you, Julian."

"You're very welcome"

With a wink and a smile, Kira turned and started walking down the corridor. There was a spring in her step. Was it relief?

Of course she's relieved. Who would want to spend time with you, knowing what you are, what you did? Oh, and she knows. One killer can always recognise another.

"So, doctor, tell me more about these naked women…"


	6. Chapter 6

6.

"You don't like it."

It wasn't a question, it was a statement. Ziyal decided she didn't need to make the effort to lie to Dr. Bashir.

"Well, it's very - Cardassian."

"That would follow. It is, after all, a Cardassian station."

Ziyal had lived in rooms like this all her childhood. Dark, low ceilinged, with lights and other fixtures favouring vaguely menacing shapes that were supposed to imitate weapons: sickles, daggers, axes… Hadn't she come here to get as far away as possible from the past, *all* her past?

"I know that. I guess I expected the Federation, or the Bajorans, would have - changed it more."

"Well, there's a replicator and a Federation computer. And the furniture isn't Cardassian. And look, there's some flowers…"

"Right."

There had probably been a whole team of exo-psychologists involved in the creation of the exact tone of powdery lilac for the sofa, and grey-in-grey for the carpet, designed to sooth the senses and dull emotions, and they had no doubt consulted with another team of exo-biologists and exo-sociologists in order to choose the one species of nondescript white flowers that would not have any meaning for any known species and would therefore be perfectly safe. The whole ensemble filled Ziyal with a profound sadness.

"I know, I know", Bashir said. "It's - kind of dreary at first. But you can change it, make it more your own. You know, some pictures, some plants - maybe an aquarium?"

Ziyal looked at him.

"Aquarium? Do I look like an aquarium person to you?"

Suddenly they both broke out laughing. Ziyal noticed how, in spite of him appearing to be quite young, the corners of his eyes crinkled. He sat in the sofa while Ziyal turned to inspect the the bare bulkheads.

"Books. Books will help", she said, talking more to herself than to the doctor. "Do you know I had never seen one before I came to the University? I knew they existed, of course, but they are quite out of fashion in Cardassia, and my mother and my father weren't really big readers anyway, and then in the camp - well, not much in the way of books there either. The first time they showed me the campus library, I - well, Dr. Bashir, I don't think I've ever seen anything as beautiful as that in my whole life."

"Julian. You can call me Julian, if you want."

"Only if you call me Ziyal. I noticed you used the Bajoran courtesy form. That's very thoughtful, but I like the Cardassian way better."

"See? There are *some* Cardassian things that you like."

Ziyal turned to him with a strange expression on her face.

"I'm sorry, Ziyal. I didn't mean to offend you."

"You didn't offend me. I think - I think you just said something that I didn't want to hear."

Bashir got up and walked towards her. Ziyal had to concentrate in order not to flinch. You have nothing to fear from this man, she told herself. Her mouth curved in a smile and she hoped very much he could believe it was sincere. She liked him, she really did. She just wished he were - not there right now. Please just don't touch me. Please.

"I know you have no reason to trust me or anyone. But I want you to know that you can come to me, anytime, for any reason, as a doctor, or as a friend, or anything in between. And I know right know you want me to be gone, and I am going to be, but I hope that, when you really need it, you remember what I just told you."

"Thank you." She couldn't manage more than that.

He had already opened the door and was about to step outside when she called after him.

"Dr. Bashir - I mean, Julian… is it true there are other Cardassians on the station?"

"They don't come often, but yes, you might run into-"

"No, I mean, are there Cardassians actually living on the station?"

"Oh. You heard about Mr. Garak, then?"

"I told my father about my plan to live here for a while. He - told me about him, yes."

_If you have any kind of dealings with him, if you even so much as greet him when you pass his shop - and believe me, I will find out if you do - I will fly this ship straight to Deep Space 9, I will find him and I will slit his throat in the middle of a promenade. _That was what Gul Dukat had to say about Elim Garak.

"I'm sure he did."

"Do you know him?"

"Well - when it refers to Mr. Garak, that is a more interesting question than you might expect. Let's say I find him - fascinating. We do have a standing lunch date once a week. I could certainly introduce you, if-"

"No! I don't want to meet him, or see him, I don't want anything to do with him!"

Bashir seemed taken aback. And why shouldn't he be, after such an absurd outburst. But there was no reproach in his answer, and just as she had chosen not to lie to him, now he returned the favor.

"Of course you don't have to meet him if you don't want to. But not seeing him might be a bit more difficult. It's a big station, but it's not that big, and his shop is right on the promenade, so…"

"I'll walk by it really fast."

Was that a smile playing around his mouth? If only he would leave.

"I wouldn't worry too much. He's a private man and keeps to himself. With any luck, you won't even know he's on the station."

"Do you think - do you think he knows about me?"

"There is very little about this station that Mr. Garak doesn't know, most of the time several days before it actually happens. So yes, I do think he knows about you. But, like I said, he's a private man. If you don't seek him out, I very much doubt he'll come to you."

Ziyal opened her mouth as if to say something, then closed it again.

"Just take your time to settle in. It will be fine. And, remember: anything you need, anything at all, you know where to find me."

With a last reassuring smile, he left. Ten minutes later, a call came in to maintenance:

"Hello, this is Tora Ziyal? I arrived on the station today, and I'm in the habitat ring, level 5, section 4. I… it seems I've had an accident while unpacking, there are several broken, uh, objects, and I will need another mirror in the bathroom, it seems to have broken as well. What do you mean, unbreakable? Well, this one broke, so maybe it was defective in the first place. Yes, I will be here. Oh, one more thing: do you know where I could order or replicate some bookcases? Yes, I can provide you with specifications."


	7. Chapter 7

7.

The days were good. There was a structure to them, and Ziyal was deeply thankful for that. Although there was a good deal of non-military personnel on the station, most of her friends - Nerys, Julian, Jadzia - were military and worked and lived by a strict schedule that defined specific times for meals, work, and recreation, depending on which shift you were on. Following Julian's suggestion Ziyal simply chose "alpha shift" and, just like that, it was all prearranged: when the others slept, she slept; when they got up, she got up; when they ate, she ate; when they worked, she studied; when she had free time, she exercised. Tialla had given her a copy of a dancing program as a parting gift, and sometimes she even used it in it's original form - she liked the pure uselessness of it: no purpose, just a body moving to music, for no reason, expecting nothing. But most of the time she used a modified form of it that she had programmed herself. In a way, she was still dancing - only she never knew who her partners would be, or how many, or what weapons they would use. There was only one thing she knew: by the end of the program, all of them would be dead.

The most exciting time of Ziyal's days usually involved food: what to eat, when to eat, where to eat, with whom to eat. Although people kept saying that replicator food just didn't taste as good, Ziyal was still in awe about all the choices that were just a voice command away, and often she ate alone in her quarters, indulging in exotic and extremely unhealthy combinations: fish and jam, gagh wrapped in pancakes, andorian pasta sprinkled with cocoa chips, and of course, the 3569 varieties of something that almost every species had by now agreed to call "swedish meatballs".

But she knew she had to be careful. A certain amount of shyness and reclusion would be understood; too much of it, and people would start to show up. Knock at her door, worry, maybe go as far as order medical and psychological evaluations. In short, it would get her the kind of attention she wanted to avoid at all costs. So she made sure to visit one of the food courts or Quark's at regular intervals. There was also a standing dinner date with Kira once a week. Sometimes she would ask the major if she'd heard anything about her father's ship. There was a curious emptiness in her stomach when she did that. But there never where any news, except that the ship was still out there, somewhere. Or at least that's what Kira said.

There was also the occasional lunch with doctor Bashir. Once she mentioned to him how illogical it was that eating a meal with a man at a certain hour could be seen as an overture for romance, sex, or both, and was considered completely innocent and harmless at a certain other hour. He laughed and said she was completely right. But he had never asked her to join him for dinner, and neither had she. With Julian, Ziyal never had the feeling that he considered spending time with her her a duty - perhaps because it wasn't. Kira felt an obligation to her, and Jadzia felt an obligation to Kira. Julian talked to her because he wanted to.

She waited a couple of weeks before bringing it up again. Who knew, perhaps he'd forgotten her reaction when they first talked about it. It was kind of common knowledge that Garak and Julian often talked about books during their lunches, so Ziyal subtly (or so she thought) directed the conversation towards literature and at one point casually (or so she thought) asked if maybe Mr. Garak had mentioned anything interesting she could read.

Julian didn't even have to look up from his plate for her to notice that he *did* remember her reaction. There was a certain over-eager friendliness about Julian Bashir at times, a forced down-to-earth, I'm-just-a-regular-guy attitude that Ziyal found irritating, but under that lay a sharp intelligence and an acute awareness. Of course he remembered.

"As much, or as less, as usual. He's a creature of habits."

"Interesting choice of a word. Creature."

"It's just an expression, Ziyal. I just meant he likes his routines."

"I know what it means."

Carefully, almost in slow motion, Julian put down his fork beside his plate of pasta primavera.

"What is it you want to know, Ziyal?"

Tora clenched her fists. She didn't like how he was looking at her. She didn't like it at all.

Ziyal took a breath, then another.

"All right, fine. I'll admit it. I'm curious about him. Happy now?"

"Only natural."

"Do not patronise me, Dr. Bashir."

"I'm not patronising you. Everyone is curious about Mr. Garak. He wants it that way. He needs to keep people guessing."

"Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of keeping to himself? I thought he was a private man. That's what you said."

"Not necessarily. It's just another way of being in control, of manipulating what others think about him, how they behave with him. Not unlike you."

Ziyal was so surprised that Tora didn't even have time to react.

"Me?"

"Garak purposefully cultivates an air of mystery, even a certain understated danger. You, on the other hand, go out of your way to appear simple and plain, almost bland. Come to think of it, your father does it too: he goes to a lot of trouble to make people think he's very violent, borderline psychotic."

"But he isn't?"

"Not as much as he wants us to believe, I think. Same as Garak probably isn't as dangerous as he pretends to be, and you certainly aren't as simple as you pretend to be. Maybe it's a Cardassian thing."

"First of all, I'm not a Cardassian. And second, how did this turn into a conversation about me?"

"Garak would say: aren't we all talking about ourselves, even when we pretend to be talking about other people?"

"Ok, you know what - forget it. It was a stupid question and I got a stupid answer. Point taken. You have a nice day, Julian."

Since throwing her napkin on the floor with a flourish would have been a foolish gesture to top off a foolish conversation, Ziyal placed it beside her plate, still almost full of artichoke salad with yamok sauce, and stood up.

"You've eaten almost nothing."

"I'm not hungry." Her stomach was beginning to hurt, and nausea was setting in. Ziyal hoped she could make it to her quarters without throwing up somewhere in a corridor.

"Ziyal… I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to upset you."

Ziyal couldn't decide if he was sincere or not. He probably was, but what did it matter?

"It's all right."

"No, it's not. You're unwell."

"Yes, I am." She never would have thought she could admit it so freely, but all of a sudden she felt as if a cocoon surrounded her, and that cocoon was full of cotton. She could almost taste it, feel it on her skin. Her stomach didn't hurt anymore, there was no nausea. There was nothing. She was just so tired. And for the first time, Ziyal asked Tora for help. Please just help me get to my quarters. Just get me there. I don't want to faint here. I don't want to die.

Bashir was still talking, saying something about going to sickbay, and Ziyal heard her voice answer, but she couldn't make out what she was saying. The doctor's face set into a neutral expression.

"Very well. I'll check in on you later to see how you're doing."

Whatever.

"And, Ziyal?"

She stopped, her back already turned to him.

"I really do think you should meet Mr. Garak."

She reached her quarters without falling and without stepping out of an airlock. With a little whimper of relief, Ziyal curled up behind the sofa, where it felt the safest, and waited for Tora to berate her as the pathetic creature she was. But Tora only said: you owe me. And Ziyal thought, yes. I owe you.


	8. Chapter 8

Bashir did show up later, and although her inside still felt like an open wound, Ziyal knew better than to refuse to see him. She had showered, and changed into something that Jadzia had introduced her to, called pyjamas, which made her feel a tiny bit better, and arranged some books on the table, as if she was studying, or at least reading, thus making a show of being a functioning part of - whatever it was out there that people functioned in. She told him it must have been the artichokes, they always upset her stomach but she loved them so. "Whenever you see me order them, just smack me real hard on the head", she grinned. After that grin, there was not very much Bashir could do, although she could all but see the word THERAPY flash behind his eyes.

"About Mr. Garak…"

"Oh, Garak, Shmarak. Haven't we spent enough time talking about him?"

"You are the one who brought it up, Ziyal. Two times. And both times you had quite - extreme reactions."

"Well, then maybe you should smack me over the head whenever I talk about Mr. Garak."

"Ziyal…"

"Julian. Please." She got up and offered him her best earnest face. It always worked with Kira, but then Kira was not a highly intelligent and trained healer and psychologist. Kira was good at reading people in battle situations, to assess how and when and where they would move. How they felt after the battle, or why, didn't interest her very much, because she thought it wasn't useful to her.

"Look, I got a bit - obsessed with this Garak, I'll admit it. There are all these rumours about him, and I haven't really met many Cardassians, and then… you know how it is, as soon as someone tells you not to do something, suddenly it's all you want to do. But it is sort of silly, isn't it? I mean, all this fuss about a simple tailor."

"Right. A simple tailor."

"So I've been thinking: why don't you just introduce us? We'll just walk into his shop, we'll shake hands, and then we can just nod at each other when we meet at a replimat, like normal people." Ziyal felt an ice hand between her shoulder blades when she said "shake hands", but not having to slouch around corners in fear of meeting the infamous Mr. Garak did have a certain appeal. What was there to be afraid of, after all?

Being afraid is how you survive, Ziyal. Don't you remember?

It doesn't feel like I'm surviving now, Tora. It really doesn't.

Because it's not supposed to feel good. That's what life is. Suffering. And I'm not leaving until you've learned it. Until I know you're safe.

"Ziyal? Are you ok?"

"What? Oh, yes. I think I haven't quite gotten rid of the artichokes… So, what do you think."

"I think it's actually a very good idea, Ziyal. You just tell me whenever you feel up to it."

"I will."

Before walking out, he stopped to look at her again. It was something he did a lot, walk away and then turn suddenly, as if he wanted to catch her doing something he wasn't supposed to see. Usually he smiled and waved, but today he said: "I'm proud of you, Ziyal. I think you are doing remarkably well."

Scratch his face. Throw something. Slit her wrists. Hug him. Cry and cry and cry until the room was full of tears and they could both drown. Since she couldn't decide what she wanted to do more, Ziyal settled for a simple: "Thank you."

The next day was a Tuesday, and Tuesday meant dinner with Kira at Quark's. They sat down at their usual place at the second level, looking down at the dabo table, and the conversation started as it always started, with Kira complaining about how noisy it was, to which Ziyal responded that she didn't mind going somewhere else, after which Kira invariably said: "Oh, never mind. I'm too tired to go anywhere else, and it's not like there are so many other choices anyway. Besides, the place is not important, the important thing is that we are together." Ziyal hadn't managed to figure out if Kira was even aware of saying the exact same thing and smiling the exact same smile every time.

So they ordered food (which Kira always complained about) and talked about what they had been doing during the week: in Kira's case, mostly about who she'd won against at springball, and about the religious services she'd attended, especially if a vedek from Bajor had visited the station, which happened rather often. It amazed Ziyal how enthusiastic Kira could get about a new interpretation of an obscure passage of a scroll that was a thousand years old and of unclear origin. How she managed to still believe the aliens who lived in the wormhole were gods, and that the Commander was "the Emissary". Kira had invited Ziyal to attend services with her, but Ziyal had said she didn't feel she was ready, and Kira didn't press her further. What Ziyal didn't say was that she was indeed curious about Bajoran religion: she had read quite a bit about it and was actually dying to go to a service - but not with Kira. Not with her judging eyes on her.

Then they talked about what Ziyal had read and studied during the week, but instead of a free flowing conversation, to which each part brought their own experiences and tastes, like it was with Julian, with Kira this always felt more like an exam, as if each week she was evaluating Ziyal's right to stay on the station. Ziyal knew it wasn't so, and that Kira genuinely appreciated her and was interested in her progress. It was just something about Kira that kept her on her guard. More than usual, that is.

They'd had, what, three, four meals like this? Today, after her latest breakdown, the prospect of an infinity of tuesdays at Quark's stretching out before her into the future made Ziyal feel short of breath. But she wasn't having another breakdown. This was something else.

"I need a drink", Ziyal said.

"A drink?" Judging by Kira's tone, Ziyal might as well have said "I need to drink a bottle of lye right now."

"It is a bar, isn't it? And yet we've never been to the actual bar, we're always sitting here, looking down at it."

"Yes, because down there it's always crowded and up here you can at least breathe, not to mention actually hearing what the other person is saying."

"Well, you don't have to stay. I'm perfectly capable of having a drink on my own."

Kira tensed. Not a very smart thing to say, Ziyal. You need to look helpless, she has to believe you need her. She has to believe you're innocent. Everyone has to.

"It's just… I thought we could do something different. They all seem to be having so much fun, and don't think I've ever done that, you know? Just sit at a bar and have a drink. You probably think it's ridiculous."

That's better. Lower your eyes, smile shyly. Appeal to her pity, make her feel guilty. Sure enough, a minute later they were both sitting down at the bar, in front of them a couple of enormous glasses shaped like fish bowls, filled with an orange liquid. It wasn't exactly what Ziyal had had in mind when she said she needed a drink, but it was better than water. Probably.

Kira was eyeing her drink as if it might attack her, then looked around the bar, possibly looking for help to defeat it. And she found it.

"Commander Riker!"

Coming towards them from the direction of the dabo tables, sporting a Starfleet Command uniform and a broad grin was possibly the most imposing man Ziyal had ever seen. He was as tall as her father, if not taller, had a massive chest, an many many white teeth gleaming in his mouth.

"Major Kira. What's a girl like you doing in a bar like this?"

"I might ask you the same thing."

"Are you implying that I look especially girly tonight."

"You said it. I didn't."

Ziyal had never seen Kira act as openly flirty as this. It didn't suit her. But Ziyal had to admit it was rather difficult not to start acting a little silly around this man. There was something about him. Kira introduced him to Ziyal as William Riker, First Officer of the Enterprise, and by the way she said it, and the flash is Riker's eyes, Ziyal gathered that "Enterprise" meant something special. Then, just as she thought he was going to say something silly and flirty to her too, Riker stopped. Just for a beat, really, but long enough to create an uncomfortable silence.

He has seen something. He knows something, Tora warned.

What can he know? Today is the first time he's seen me.

He's Starfleet. What do you know about Lamar? Maybe he had dealings with Starfleet. Maybe Riker is here to investigate. Maybe they are already onto you. Go. Now.

But Ziyal knew better. Leaving now, after she had begged Kira to have a drink, would make her look even more suspicious - if anyone actually suspected her of anything. So she smiled, and sipped at her drink and talked about food, her preferred topic for small talk. She didn't look into Riker's eyes once, and he didn't flirt with her once. After fifteen minutes, Ziyal said she was very tired and really had to go to bed.

"Can I walk you to your quarters?"

"No, you can't."

Out of the corner of her eye Ziyal could see Kira's shocked expression at her rudeness, but Riker just nodded.

"Then I wish you a good night, Ms. Tora."

"Good night."

That night, standing by the viewport in her quarters, Ziyal recalled his expression when he first looked at her. It had almost been a sort of shock, a recognition. And after that, something else… No, not wariness, or disgust, or even glee, as might be expected of someone who had just identified a murder suspect.

Pity. For just one moment, William Riker had looked at her with such pity. And she had no idea why.


	9. Chapter 9

9.

She'd felt it before, but after meeting William Riker the feeling intensified: everything was on the brink of disappearing, and everyone's job seemed to be just to push back, to keep things existing for one more day. Everyone that was someone, that is - Kira, Jadzia, Julian, and people like Riker. Everyone else's job, especially Ziyal's, was to keep out of the way as much as possible.

Which was why Ziyal was so astonished when Kira told her Commander Sisko had invited them both to dinner at their quarters, together with Bashir, Jadzia, and a few others. A regular party. Ziyal was horrified. Was this an elaborate set-up? Maybe this Riker person had told the Commander everything about her and they just wanted to get her into a small space with a lot of people to overpower her more easily? If that was the plan, they were certainly in for a surprise.

Next saturday, 7 hundred hours station time, Tora Ziyal stepped into the Commander's quarters, wearing her best dress and three small knives hidden on her person. The Commander and the other guests greeted her warmly - including Commander William T. Riker, of the Starship Enterprise, who was there for a number of strategy meetings with Starfleet personnel and the Bajoran militia. So she was told. Again, the look of recognition and regret on his face when he looked at her. She could feel his eyes on her all through the evening, but they didn't talk much, and if he knew something about her, it became clear very soon that he had no intention of revealing it - yet. Soon they were all sitting around the dinner table, eating something delicious and spicy apparently called Gum-Bo, and Ziyal began to realise whose idea this party really had been, and why she was here.

Sisko definitely *was* a diplomat, and it was all very subtle. He started out asking about her time at the University, about the people she'd met there and how she liked them. Tora felt for the knife hidden in her sleeve, but Sisko switched the conversation to her studies. He seemed genuinely interested in her choice of literature as her main field of study and launched into a little speech about the wonders of fiction, followed by a rather predictable sigh about how much he loved to read and how little time he had for it. Suddenly, he jumped up, went into the bedroom, and came back with a couple of volumes, beautifully bound in what looked like authentic leather.

"Here, I want you to have these."

"But Commander, I could't possibly…"

But she was already opening them, caressing their pages, making them hers. "Middlemarch", by George Eliot.

_Explain! Tell a man to explain why he dropped into hell! Explain my preference! I never had a preference for her, any more than I have a preference for breathing. No other woman exists by the side of her. I would rather touch her hand if it were dead, than I would touch any other woman__'__s living._

"Why, captain Sisko, it's a love story!"

Was he blushing? Ziyal could have sworn his colour had shifted.

"It's more of a - social story. It's about a small town in England, quite deep in Earths's past. I find it fascinating how little about human passions and relationships has changed since then."

"Thank you very much for the suggestion, captain. I'll get a copy for my padd, but I can't take these. They seem valuable."

"But I thought you collected them."

Ziyal glanced over at Julian, who didn't blush in the slightest. Sisko smiled, his trademark broad smile.

"Please, take them. They have kept me company for many years. Now, they can keep *you* company."

"Because I need them more?"

"Yes."

Now everyone was smiling, as if she had won a prize. See?, they seemed to say. We're all good friends here, nothing to be suspicious of. We talk of books and love and the finer things in life. Tora's knife was still in it's place. The questions started with dessert. Had she heard from her father. Hadn't she been on his ship before going to the University on Bajor. Why had she decided to leave. All very casual, between bites of a really very good cake of a deep purple colour.

"It was all quite violent, Commander. I think I've had my fill of violence for a long while. Hopefully, for the rest of my life."

"Of course, I understand. Still, it must be hard to be away from your father…"

"It's the life he has chosen, and I respect that. But he never wanted me there, and after a few days, I understood why. As much as I want to be with him, I could never live like that."

Ziyal made sure her voice trembled just a little. Her fork fell to the floor, and there, much faster than she would have thought possible for such a big man, was Riker, picking it up and putting it back on the table. Looking straight into her eyes.

He wants something. The thought went through her like a flash, and with it went the certainty that it had nothing to do with Lamar Torel. As fast and as silent as he had come, he as back at the other end of the room again, speaking to Jadzia.

A second later, Ziyal felt Commander Sisko's hand on her shoulder.

"I'm sorry to have brought it up."

Ziyal said: "I don't think you are."

The conversations stopped. Jadzia raised an eyebrow. Kira said "Ziyal!", but a look from Odo kept her from saying anything else. This was obviously not something you said to Commander Sisko, but he, to his credit, didn't flinch.

"I am sorry to have hurt your feeling or caused you grief. But I am not sorry to have asked those questions, that is true. There are things I need to know."

"Of course, Commander. My father is a dangerous man, and it is your duty to gather as much information about him as you can. I am his daughter and probably the person closest to him right now. It would be foolish not to try and get some information out of me. What did I see? What did he tell me? What did he do? Is he on contact with me somehow? Here I am, living on your station, stuffing myself with your food, doing nothing for my keep. What's a little harmless information in return for all that?"

Even Sisko looked flustered now, and Jadzia had raised both eyebrows, which somehow made her look very young. Odo had his hand on Kira's shoulder, but the look on the Major's face was strained. Bashir leaned back on the couch and tucked into his second piece of cake, seemingly unaware that there was anything out of the ordinary going on. A slight smile played around William Riker's mouth.

"I agree with you, Commander. You need information and I will give you what I have, because what else can I give you? Did my father tell me things? Oh yes, Commander, he did. He told me that he loved me very much, that he was glad he didn't kill me. Because he should have, did you know that? I'm a bastard, my mother was a Bajoran, I am the lowest creature there is. But he loves me, and he told me so, many times. He said that I should leave him and go and learn about the world, because he had a mission, and with me by his side he couldn't fulfil his duty. Did I see things? Oh yes, I saw things. I saw dirt and sweat and blood and soldiers. Bored soldiers, unhappy soldiers, drunk soldiers, soldiers who wanted to get me into their bunks but were too afraid to even look at me because they knew my father would kill them without a second thought. Oh, and I saw some rats, too. Very fat ones. Do you think I could have another piece of cake? It *is* delicious, Commander. Did you make it yourself?"

That night, for the first time in years, Ziyal slept well. She placed the books the Commander had given her on her nightstand, and the smell of leather and musty pages lulled her to sleep. In her dreams, she wandered a very large, very fine hall, lined with books from floor to ceiling, the biggest library there existed. Somewhere in this library, she knew, there was a man, and the man was sewing a dress for her. She could see it, in her dream, a dress of a purple shade, with gold stitching. It was a good feeling to know that someone, somewhere, was making something for her.

The next morning, before the dream and the feeling of well-being that had come with it had completely dissipated, Ziyal made a call.

"Tora Ziyal to doctor Bashir. If you are not too busy, do you think it would be possible to make our little visit to the tailor's shop today? In half an hour? Perfect, I'll meet you there."

Getting dressed in front of the mirror, Tora made one, two, three slashed across her breast with one of her little knifes. It wouldn't have been necessary, though. Ziyal remembered who she was.


	10. Chapter 10

10.

Elim Garak was standing at his workstation in the middle of his shop, sewing. When Ziyal and Bashir entered, he placed the needle very carefully on the piece of fabric he had been working on. It was a real steel needle, not a micro-laser one. One of the deadliest weapons there are, when used right, Tora noticed with approval. When he's not looking, you should take one for yourself.

"Ah, my dear doctor. Such a rare and welcome sight in my humble shop. This dreary day is brightened by your presence. And of course your enchanting companion, miss…?"

As if he didn't know who she was. As if he hand't been waiting for her. As if he hadn't known.

"Tora Ziyal. Ziyal, this is the famous… tailor, Mr. Garak."

He didn't shake her hand, just bowed his head in her direction. Ziyal bowed back. She had looked into the eyes of men who were about to lose their lives at her hands, but she had never seen a man closer to full blown panic than Mr. Elim Garak, the famous tailor, at this very moment. This was when she was supposed to smile, do some small talk, and basically give him the message that she was not here to kill him on her father's behalf. Then, she could leave and get on with her life, hopefully one less burden on her mind.

That was the plan. There was only one problem with it: she could not speak. The panic she had detected for a second in Garak's eyes had somehow gripped her own body: she couldn't scream, she couldn't run, and Tora - Tora was mute. Without saying a single word, Ziyal turned away and started to wander around the shop, pretending to be enraptured by the dresses displayed on mannequins and several racks, trying to control her breathing and to keep tears from pouring down her cheeks. The fresh cuts across her chest burned like fire. What's the use of having a split personality if you can't even count on it on occasions like these, she thought furiously. She didn't even realise then that this was the first time that she had acknowledged to herself, if ever so fleetingly, that she *had* a split personality, that Tora was actually a part of herself.

After a very long minute, when Ziyal thought she actually might be able to talk, she approached the doctor and Garak. They weren't staring at her, as she half had expected, but were animatedly discussing the latest station gossip about Leeta, one of the dabo girls, and a Starfleet security officer named Dobson or maybe Dodson, who had put a very public end to their relationship at Quark's a couple of nights ago. Apparently, furniture had been thrown.

They turned to her, Bashir trying to conceal how much he regretted bringing her there, and Garak with friendly detachment, the moment of panic she had detected long gone. Detachment, and something else, something she had seen not very long ago in Commander Riker's eyes. Elim Garak was looking at her with pity. Suddenly, Tora woke up and decided she would very much like to rip his throat out with her bare teeth.

"You have a very nice shop, Mr. Garak."

"Thank you. It is modest, of course, but I like to think that in my small way I am contributing to bring a little beauty into the Universe."

"Yes, there are some very nice, um, pieces in here."

"It goes without saying that any friend of the doctor will get a special prize. Was there anything in particular you were interested in?"

"How much is this?" Ziyal held up the piece he had been working on when they came in. It was a light shade of purple, with gold embroidery in an ornamental spiral pattern. It looked like silk but was velvety to the touch quite heavy.

"Ah. Bolian embroidery. Very rare, very beautiful. Very difficult to handle."

"Meaning I couldn't afford it?"

"Meaning this is not the kind of fabric you buy for yourself. This should be given to you, out of admiration for your beauty, your mind, your strength."

His words seemed to probe her, and there was nothing detached about the way he looked at her now.

"So instead of just buying something nice for myself because I like it, I have to wait for that special someone to discover all those qualities in me and somehow be inspired by them to give me precisely what I want, is that it? How very progressive."

"Progress is overrated. That is my personal opinion, although I am aware that it is not a popular one."

"There's a place for tradition, and there's a place for progress. A society needs both to keep alive", Bashir said.

"Well said, well said! As always, you are as articulate as you are inspiring, my dear doctor."

"I'm sure this is all being a fascinating learning experience for poor uneducated me, but you still haven't answered my question. How. Much. Is it."

Ziyal was still holding the piece of Bolian embroidery, she could see how the sweat from her hands had moistened the fabric, turning it a darker, almost brownish color. Her touch had turned something precious and delicate into a useless piece of trash.

Gently, Garak took it out of her hand. "It is not for sale, Miss Tora. Not yet, anyway."

"Don't call me Tora. I am not Bajoran, and you know perfectly well everyone calls me Ziyal."

"Indeed, I do beg your pardon - Ziyal."

"I didn't come here to be patronised, Mr. Garak."

"No one is patronising you, Ziyal", said Bashir. "Maybe we should just…"

"I am not going to kill you."

Garak just nodded, as if all along he had been expecting her to say exactly that at that exact moment.

"That is good to know."

"You know what I'm speaking about. You know who I am, you know who my father is."

"Yes, my dear, I do know that."

"That is what I came to say to you today: I am not going to kill you. All right? My father doesn't like you, a lot of people don't trust you, but that has nothing to do with me. I just want to live my life quietly, like you do. I will not bother you if you will not bother me. And that includes patronising me, which I don't like. I don't like it at all."

"I see. Well, that seems like a very reasonable arrangement to me. No bothering, no patronising."

They stood looking at each other for a moment. Not five minutes ago she was on the verge of having a panic attack, and now the thought of leaving this place made her feel heartbroken. What the fuck is wrong with you? She wanted Tora to be asking her this, but it was her own voice.

"Goodbye, Mr. Garak."

"My friends call me Elim."

"We are not friends."

"I suppose we are not. Goodbye then, my - Ziyal. I assume I shouldn't hold this for you?"

He held up the embroidery, the dark patch where Ziyal had held it clearly visible. Without another word or look, she turned and left, a confused doctor in tow. After they had turned the corner and were out of sight of Garak's shop, Bashir asked: "Are you all right, Ziyal?"

"I'm getting a little tired of you asking me that, doctor. I'm fine, why shouldn't I be?"

"I'm asking as a friend, not as a doctor. It's what friends do."

"Then maybe we shouldn't be friends either."

As Ziyal walked away, Bashir didn't follow and he didn't call after her. Ten or twenty meters into the next corridor, Ziyal's legs just gave out and she crumpled against a bulkhead. That's where William Riker found her.


	11. Chapter 11

11.

"If you call doctor Bashir, or anyone else, I swear I will kill you. I will. Just go away, leave me alone. Why won't everybody just leave me alone?"

Riker didn't go away, but he didn't touch his communicator either. Instead, he sat down beside her, leaning against the bulkhead.

Talking to Garak and then, walking away from Bashir, Ziyal had felt light and strangely exhilarated. She had felt - powerful, like there was some kind of an electric current surging through her. At moments it had seemed to her that it was neither Ziyal nor Tora speaking, but some other being, infinitely wiser and more enlightened than she could ever hope to be. Now whatever it was had seeped out of her body and her mind and had left her empty. All she wanted was to sit there until she herself became a bulkhead. She knew she could do it if she just concentrated hard enough. If it wasn't for that Riker person sitting next to her…

Finally Ziyal came to the conclusion that ignoring him wasn't going to make him leave.

"What do you want?"

"Nothing in particular."

"Why are you following me?"

"I am not following you."

"That's a lie. Everywhere I go, either you're already there, or you turn up soon after."

"Maybe we just move in the same circles."

"Circles my ass. You - you're watching me. You're always lurking somewhere, behind me, around the corner, and you always have this - look. You want something, so whatever it is, why don't you just tell me straight out and get it over with."

Maybe he's already told them. Maybe they are already on their way. They are getting their phasers ready because he's told them she's dangerous. Ziyal could almost see the look on Kira's face - not disappointed, and not surprised. She expected this and she's smiling, she's looking forward to taking Ziyal down. She's been *anticipating* this.

Let them come, Ziyal thought. Let them come. I will not move. I will not move.

"Are you all right?"

Riker was not touching her, but she could feel his face close to hers. She opened her eyes and for a second, it was Garak's face she saw, those blue eyes that to her were darker than the blackest black. Then he was gone, and Riker's eyes weren't dark at all. He was saying something, something about how she should try to breathe, which was of course ridiculous, how was she supposed to breathe when her chest burned like this, and her feet and her hands were so cold, and there was no air, how was she supposed to breathe with no fucking air?

Then Riker was holding her and somehow she *was* breathing, and she was sobbing and holding on to him, because what else was there. He was telling her that it would be all right, and she shouldn't be afraid, and all she could think of saying was: "I wish I was a stone."

"I know", he said.

Ziyal couldn't have said if they had stayed like that for minutes or hours. After a while she sat up straight again and tried to clean up her face with the sleeves of her dress, with mixed results. Then she looked back at him.

"You've come to get me, haven't you? For what I did, at the University."

She had meant for it to sound defiant, to show him, to show everyone she didn't care, but it came out weak and quivery. How can you be so pathetic, Tora hissed, but even she felt weak and somehow distant in Ziyal's mind.

Riker took her hands and looked her in the eyes.

"No, Ziyal. I have not come to get you. Whatever it is you did, or you think you did, I don't care, and it is not the reason why I'm here right now."

He's trying to distract you, Tora warned. He thinks you're weak now, he thinks you trust him because you've allowed him to grope you and you got your snot all over his pretty uniform.

"Ziyal? Are you here?"

"Where else would I be?"

"You seemed - distracted. As if you were listening to someone else, maybe."

"There's no one else here."

"Exactly. There's just you and me, Ziyal and Will, no one else. Just Ziyal and Will, talking. Do you think we could talk for a little while now? Do you feel up to that?"

"I don't know…"

"Do you remember what you said right now? That you wished you were a stone?"

"That's a stupid thing to say."

"I don't think it's stupid. I think it's actually a very sad thing to say, and what I want to tell you is that I understand, that I know how you're feeling."

Although listening to his voice was actually making her feel a little better, Ziyal was not about to tell Riker that, and she certainly didn't believe he knew anything about how she felt. To show him just how ridiculous he was, she snorted, and a string of snot came shooting out of her nose. Luckily, Riker didn't see that final bit of humiliation. He was looking at the floor in front of him now. There was something vaguely artificial about his breathing, as if he was consciously trying to control it.

"For me, it was frost giants," he said.

"What?"

"You said you wanted to be a stone. When I was a child, I wanted to be a frost giant."

"What's a frost giant?"

"They are magical beings from norse mythology. Basically giants - made of ice."

"Aha."

"The important thing was to turn myself into something that didn't feel, that couldn't be hurt. Something as near to dead as possible."

He looked at Ziyal. If he was expecting her to speak, he had a long wait ahead of him, because she had her mouth shut so hard that her jaws hurt.

"The reason why I wanted to become a frost giant was that - some bad stuff was happening to me. A lot of really bad stuff. I was being hurt, and others were being hurt, people I cared about, and there was nothing I could do about it because I was little, so I-"

"I'm not little."

"No, you're not. But you were, not so long ago. How old are you?"

"None of your business."

"Right. It's not about age, anyway, it's about feeling helpless. Like when you were at that camp…"

"Don't you dare talk to me about that. You know nothing about that. You know nothing about me."

She had intended to scream at him, but it came out flat, as if she was talking about the weather.

"I know a little. I know you haven't had an easy life. I know you feel scared and confused a lot of the time, and I know you hate to show it. I know that the one thing you hate more than to talk about your feelings is when others talk to you about your feelings. Am I getting close?"

Ziyal said nothing, and he continued.

"The reason why I know all this is that I've felt the same way for a great part of my life. And I thought it was all my fault, but it wasn't. It took a lot of time, and a lot of good people, to make me realise that. I wouldn't wish it on anyone, but one of the good things that came out of it was that I can recognise it now. In myself, and in others. So when we first met, that night at Quark's, I thought I saw it in you, this - helplessness. This sickness. There's a certain way we move, a way we look at people we don't know."

Who are you to say "we", Ziyal thought. Or maybe it was Tora.

"So you were right, I was following you - well, a little bit. I was hoping we could talk, maybe get to know each other a bit better…"

"Why? You obviously already know everything there is to know about me."

Riker sighed and started to get up.

"You're right. I've made a mess of this, haven't I?"

He shrugged, which made him look about twelve years old. Rather than having to look up to this tower of a man from a sitting position, Ziyal stood up as well. Not without surprise she noticed that her legs were indeed supporting her.

"I'm sorry", Riker said. "I will understand if you never want to see me or hear from me again. But if you ever need to talk, or any kind of help, you just have to contact me."

"Why? Why is this so important to you?"

"I told you: I was very sick, and I only survived because I had people around who cared for me. If I can do the same for someone else, I will."

"But those were your friends. You just met me."

"Some of them became my friends *because* they helped me, they didn't know me before either. And of course I hated all of them for wanting to help, at first. But they were really - persistent."

"I'm guessing that's another thing you learned."

He grinned, and this time, Ziyal couldn't hold it back, the words just flew out of her mouth: "You do have a *lot* of teeth!"

At that, Will Riker positively doubled over with laughter, and it was so contagious that, in spite of everything she felt, in spite of everything that had happened, Ziyal started laughing as well.

"Oh man, wait until I tell this to Jean-Luc."

"Jean who?"

"Uh, Picard. Captain Jean-Luc Picard. He's my - he's the captain of the Enterprise."

"One of your - friends?"

"Yes." He said that very softly.

There didn't seem to be much left to say after that. Riker walked Ziyal to her quarters and asked if she would be all right. She said yes and didn't return his look long enough to see if he believed her.

A quarter of an hour later, a message with the subject "Just In Case" appeared on Ziyal's console: it contained instructions on how to contact Commander Riker through official Starfleet channels, including something called a "priority code". Ziyal's finger hovered over the "delete" button, but suddenly she felt tired, so tired… What did a frost giant look like? And what was that embroidery Garak had shown her, Deltan? Betazoid? So beautiful…

When she woke up three hours later, curled up in front of her computer, Ziyal hit "save", then ran to the bathroom just in time to throw up in the sink. "Another wonderful day on Deep Space 9", she said to the mirror, wishing she felt strong enough to break it again.


	12. Chapter 12

That night, when she passed in front of Garak's shop, Ziyal saw a light there. There was never light in Garak's shop at night. She knew because she had passed his shop every night since the day she arrived on the station.

Since she was a little girl, Ziyal couldn't remember sleeping more than two or three hours in a row. Nights like the last one (had it only been last night?) after the dinner with the Commander, didn't really happen. Judging by the results, she decided that this whole idea of going to bed, sleeping, having pleasant dreams and waking up refreshed, in a good mood and ready to tackle life was vastly overrated. Or maybe, more simply, it just wasn't for people like her.

He's waiting for you, Tora said. He knows you were lying.

I wasn't lying, Ziyal said. I said I wasn't going to kill him, and I won't. And I'm not going in there. He's not waiting for me. He has nothing to do with me. He's already forgotten about me.

Just as well, Tora said. That will only make it easier.

They stood and watched. Inside, a stocky man with pale blue eyes that looked darker than they were was bent over a piece of delicate embroidery, a fine steel needle in his hand.

Her mother used to sew as well. There wasn't much else to do: books made her impatient, cooking bored her, and going out was always a risk: Gul Dukat's bajoran lover and her bastard daughter would be a prime target for the resistance. They were always moving from one shelter to the other, one strange house to the next, sometimes luxurious, other times no more than huts, always in fear of being discovered. If Dukat could only stay with them, her mother used to plead with him, no one would dare come near them, and they could all be together, be happy, be a family. Dukat would smile, and stroke Naprem's beautiful auburn hair, and before he left again, he would give her a new necklace or some earrings. Sometimes she insisted, cried, accused him of being cruel, of never having loved her or their daughter. Then is smile got fixed on his lips, and he wasn't stroking Naprem's hair anymore, but grabbing it with his fist, and calling her "Tora". He always called her mother Tora when he needed to hurt her, so she would understand how difficult his position was, what he was sacrificing for her, for them.

He always apologised. It was the stress, he said, the responsibilities of his position. He kissed them and left and didn't say when he'd be back. "Soon", he'd say, "very soon, my darlings. You'll see." And then at night there would be the sound of her mother's footsteps in the next room, up and down, up and down, every night. From the minute he left she was waiting for him to come back, and from the minute he came, she was fearing the moment he would leave. So Ziyal would go and make her a hot drink and sit with her until she fell asleep. Every night. "Your father will come soon", she would say, "he said so." Ziyal would answer "yes, of course he will. He said so. Go to sleep now, mother." Ziyal slept in the afternoons, while her mother was sitting by the window, when they had one, sewing pretty dresses that she thought might please Dukat and that would go with the jewellery he had given her.

Naprem believed him when he said they were all going to live together on Lissepia. He was tired of fighting, he said. If her fellow Bajorans didn't want to accept the influence of Cardassian civilisation, they could stay in the Middle Ages, for all he cared. They would lead a quiet life, he promised, maybe on a little farm, near a river, he knew just the place. Ziyal couldn't imagine her father or her mother doing any kind of farm work. When he said goodbye, before her mother and her boarded the ship, her mother chatting happily about their little farm, Ziyal cried, because she loved her father, and she knew she wouldn't see him again. In her sleeve she had hidden a couple of small scissors from her mother's sewing kit.

She lost the scissors in the crash, but she soon found other small sharp objects to replace them. The knives in her sleeves became a part of her. At night, Ziyal felt the hot desert sand beneath her feet, took what she needed from drooling, snoring men and sometimes, when she needed to, Tora made sure, with one swift, silent movement, that those men never drooled on anything, or anyone, again. Tora didn't like it when bad things happened to Ziyal.

Curiously enough, she couldn't remember ever sleeping at the camp, although she must have done it, of course. Probably during the days. She didn't remember the days very well either. The was work, hitting stones, carrying them on her back, again and again. There was hunger and thirst, unbearable heat. Other things happened, sometimes, during the days, when all the men were awake and they could surround her, five, six, more, laughing and roaring. Ziyal didn't remember that. In her memory, the years at the camp were one long night, and her eyes were always very open and as long as Tora was there no one, no one, could come near her. And Tora would never leave her. Ever.

It was Tora who told her that Dukat would not kill her. Ziyal was afraid of him when she first saw him, after so many years, his eyes wild, his mouth fixed into that smile he'd had when she was a child. The Bajoran woman talked to him, and he lowered his weapon, but Tora had seen it before: he won't hurt you, she said. How do you know?, Ziyal asked. Because he loves you, Tora said, and Ziyal could taste the contempt, bitter and slimy in her mouth.

Tora wanted to stay on Dukat's ship. The violence, the death, even the filth - that was how life should be. But Dukat saw only his little Ziyal, and sent her off. Go, learn, he said. Make a life of your own. And Ziyal went, because she always went where people told her to go. Again, she made nights her own: she stayed awake, poured through book after book, dutifully marvelling at everything that was being offered to her, enjoying even the parts she didn't understand at all. Maybe she even enjoyed those parts most of all.

That's when she forgot everything about the camp, all the little details that had been so important: who had a new weapon, who was angry at whom, who had stolen whose food, who had fresh food and whose food was rotten, which guards were drunk and which ones were aiming for a promotion. It was a rare luxury to be able to allow herself not to know, and Ziyal embraced it wholeheartedly.

Pity only that this vast, bright, deep, exciting and joyful Universe that she was so willing to learn about and explore, if only through books, was not only full of planets and stars and flowers and rocks, but also full of people. She wanted to forget about people, but they wouldn't go away. Survival, it turned out, was no longer a matter of keeping alert, reacting in time, and carrying her sharp little knives concealed (although she still did, she always did that). It was all slippery now, not depending on actions, but on words, spoken and unspoken, and looks, and subtle connections. All these people, were they friends, were they enemies? What did they want, who were they, who did they think she was? And then there was Lamar Toral, rolling down the steps, one two three, coming to rest on his living room rug. There was Elim Garak, following her with his darkened eyes, sitting over his needles, waiting - for what? William Riker, telling her stories about frost giants - why? Kira, Bashir. People. Too many people.

Good people, normal people, who slept at night. Ziyal didn't sleep at night. Ziyal - walked. She loved the empty station, she felt like she belonged there like she hadn't felt it anywhere else. She crossed the promenade again and again, peered into dark shop windows (and Garak's was always dark), did occasional double somersaults from the balcony, climbed to the upper pylons and looked out across the stars to the wormhole, wandered the corridors, strolled through cargo and docking bays. Sometimes she followed the cleaning and maintenance crews around, learning many useful things about access panels and shortcuts and how this huge station worked on tiny details and constant repairs and, most of all, the blind faith that it wouldn't just fall apart at the seams. Other times she looked into ops for an hour or two from a nook she had found, and watched gamma shift go about their business, which was mostly running complicated analysis and systems checks that would block the computers for too long during other shifts, standing around holding their cups of raktajino, complaining about superiors, and waiting for their shift to end.

They never saw her, never knew she was there. She did this for four, five hours. Then she went back to her quarters, brushed her teeth, brushed her hair, put on a nightgown, climbed into bed, put out the lights, and waited for the alarm. Ziyal liked this little routine. It suited her. She liked knowing that she could find her way around the station in a crisis - if she should need to escape, or to hide. This way, she reasoned, she could be more relaxed and alert during the day, while she was engaging in all those personal relationships that seemed to be inevitable.

The only problem being that it wasn't really working. For the first couple of weeks she thought she would be all right (except for the broken mirror, but that had been her first day and she was still nervous, she told herself), but then the nausea had started, and the dizziness, so no more somersaults, and no more looking down from Upper Pylon 1. Then there came the shaking, first the hands, then the rest of the body, uncontrollable, for minutes on end, without a warning. Her feet going numb, then her face, then the rest of her, not being able to hold herself straight from one second to the next.

At first it happened only at night, when she was alone. She could deal with that. But then there had been that incident with Dr. Bashir at the replimat. She doubled and tripled her sessions with the combat program, but that wasn't the problem: as long as she was fighting someone, she was focused, efficient, flawless. It was when she was idle that the trouble started, and now the worst had happened: not only had she had a complete breakdown in front of a total stranger, but after that she had fallen asleep against her will. Ziyal had never felt so helpless in her whole life, it was simply not acceptable.

Tora, yes, Tora knew just what to do. Have I ever lied to you, she whispered, have I ever let you down? Think of it: who were you speaking of when you broke that mirror? And when you were talking to Bashir at the replicate? And whose shop were you walking out of when you fell in the corridor?

Think how proud your father will be.

"Why, Miss… Ziyal, this is certainly a surprise. I didn't think I would see you so soon after… Ziyal? Ziyal, are you all right? Garak to sickbay, I need someone in my shop as soon as possible. No, it's not me. It's Tora Ziyal. She seems to have trouble breathing…"


End file.
